


Rock Me Baby

by GossamarGus



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Fluff, M/M, everything's the same except David finds a baby, lots and lots of fluff, set between episodes 5.12 and 5.13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-04-06 11:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19061407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GossamarGus/pseuds/GossamarGus
Summary: A baby is abandoned on one of the doorsteps of the Rosebud Motel. Unfortunately for David, that doorstep happens to be his.





	1. David Finds a Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fun little idea I had after watching David interact with Roland Jr. It quickly grew wings. Three chapters total.
> 
> Set between episodes 5.12 and 5.13. 
> 
> Title from the Tina Turner song of the same name. Seemed apropos, somehow.
> 
> It's been a hot minute since I wrote for a fandom. Hope you enjoy!

The day that would go down in history as That One Time Things Went Horribly Awry started off like any other calm, normal, Rose-filled day.

“Alexis!” David thumped his fist against the door, his hand making a satisfyingly loud _thwack_ against the cheap pressboard. He waved his phone in the air, uncaring that his sister couldn’t see him do so. “You’ve passed your allotted morning routine time by thirty-seven seconds!”

There was a muffled _thump_ behind the door, followed by an indignant squeal. “Oh, my god, David!” The lock disengaged with a click, and Alexis’s towel-clad head appeared amongst a wave of lilac-scented steam, wearing an annoyed expression. “You made me drop my toning mist!”

“Wow, how inconsiderate of me,” David retorted, arms now crossed, tone deadpan. “Almost as inconsiderate as you’re being right now, encroaching on my bathroom time when I’m late for work!”

Alexis rolled her eyes at him. “I told you already, David,” she sniffed, going for a hair flip before belatedly remembering the towel. She recovered the motion by tip-tapping her fingernails up David’s arm, which he immediately recoiled from with an appalled look; the sweater he was wearing was _suede_ , and she _knew that_. Alexis scrunched her nose at him, before continuing, “Ted _just_ told me last night that the island we’re staying on doesn’t have any running water. I’m two weeks away from losing access to daily skincare, David, and I’d appreciate a little compassion.”

David, whose sympathy for Alexis's various plights had died after his seventh wire transfer to an American consulate, could feel his expression transforming into what his mother endearingly termed his “splenetic howler monkey” look. Eyes wide, forehead pinched, mouth agape, indignant rage flaring through his nostrils. “Compassion? You want _compassion?_ Here’s some compassion for you.” He leaned his face in closer to his sister’s, and enunciated obnoxiously, “Use more toning mist!”

Losing his temper with his sister, while cathartic in the immediate aftermath, ended up backfiring spectacularly on him, as with one infuriated, “Ugh, David!” Alexis swirled back into the bathroom and slammed the door in David’s face.

David blinked at the re-closed door, aghast. It’d been another Open Mic Night at the store last night, and David had spent most of the evening drowning himself in Jampagne, in an effort to suffer through Bob and his meandering stories without killing someone; skipping out on his morning routine was simply not an option today. How could he be expected to sell high-quality, luxury face products to his customers when he had entire luggage sets perched beneath his eyes?

He was nearly half an hour late opening Rose Apothecary, and he hadn’t even gotten to exfoliate yet. Patrick was going to kill him.

As David weighed the pros and cons of lighting a fire in the wastepaper basket to smoke Alexis out -- pro, the bathroom becomes his; con, the sprinklers go off and he’s set back another forty minutes picking out a different outfit because, again, _suede_ \-- there came a rapid _knock knock knock_ behind him.

Somebody was at the front door.

David looked back and forth between the two doors in exasperation, already done with this day. Who could it be at this time in the morning? Every person of his acquaintance respected his “no guests before ten” rule except for Stevie, but he had it on good authority she’d packed away more Jampagne than he had last night, and therefore didn’t expect her to emerge from her office lair anytime before noon. 

David eyed the bathroom door again, critically. Maybe if he only pretended to answer the door, he could lure Alexis back out into the open and slip in behind her while she was distracted… 

There was a second volley of knocks, louder and more rapid than the first. Throwing up his hands, David bid his youthful-looking pores a silent adieu and stomped his way across the cheaply carpeted floor.

“Is that Ted?” Alexis called, wisely still behind the locked bathroom door. “If he’s brought me a ‘sorry there's no indoor plumbing’ gift, leave it on my desk, please!”

“If it’s those chocolate truffles he makes,” David called back, one hand on the knob of the front door, the rest of his body twisted to face where his sister remained sequestered, “then I’m eating one for each extra minute you spend in that bathroom!”

“No, David!”

“Oh, I’m gonna!” David pulled open the door, half-expecting to see Alexis’s straight-laced veterinarian boyfriend on the other side, holding a plate of homemade goodies and wearing his ever-present, boyish smile.

It wasn’t Ted. 

Something burbled. David looked down.

Oh, god. It was a _baby_.

“Um.” David stared down at the lumpy pink face barely visible beneath a sea of pastel-colored blankets, snugged securely within the bowels of a navy blue carrier. “Can I help you?”

The baby didn’t answer. Because it was a baby.

“I… think you have the wrong door…?” Still clutching a hand to the doorknob, David stuck his head out of the room and looked up and down the walkway running along the front of the motel, searching for a wayward parent or maybe an unfamiliar vehicle the baby and its carrier accidentally fell from. That seemed like the sort of parenting one could expect from the residents of Schitt’s Creek.

The sidewalk was deserted, the sleepy guests of the motel yet to stir. There was a scattering of beat up sedans and late model minivans parked along the row, silent and misty-windowed from a long night of disuse. Stevie’s car sat next to the black Lincoln nearer the office, with Roland’s truck parked in front of David and Alexis’s room. Other than that, the parking lot was deserted. 

“Anybody lose a baby?” David called out hopefully, to no avail. He glanced back down at the bundle of blankets, mouth pulled up in an uncomfortable grimace, eyebrows high on his head. What the hell was going on?

If Alexis was ordering things off the black market again, David was going to kill her.

There was another knock -- officially David’s new least favorite noise, _oh my god_ \-- from behind him, and David craned his neck around just in time to watch his father stroll into the room, crisp gray suit impeccable, with a stack of notecards in hand.

“Kids, you up? I’ve got some jokes for Roland’s mayor roast I’d like to run by you, and I thought… ah, David!” Spotting his son standing frozen in the open doorway -- looking, David would imagine, like a fashionably chic deer who was .2 seconds away from being pulverized by an 18-wheeler -- Johnny ambled his way to David’s side. “I’ve come up with some real belly-achers that I think you’ll find are more than -- oh, my.”

Johnny dropped his notecards, and David felt something in his cheek twitch as he watched them scatter to the four corners of the room. Eyes widened with surprise, Johnny pointed at the navy baby carrier. “That’s a baby.”

“Oh,” David said, the stare he gave his father deeply incredulous, “is that what it is?” 

“Now’s not the time for your snark, son,” Johnny admonished, his gaze never wavering from the bundle out on the doorstep. He was still gesturing with his finger. “Why’s there a baby outside your door?”

David used the entirety of his upper body to shrug. “I don’t know!”

“Babies don’t just magically appear on doorsteps, David!”

“It's not like I put it there!”

“Well, somebody did!”

“Why are you yelling at me?”

“I’m not yelling!”

Their yelling seemed to upset the baby, who kicked out one of its tiny feet before letting out a fitful wail.

David and Johnny both took a wary step backward.

“It’s crying,” Johnny said, back to pointing out the obvious, and something in David’s cheek twitched again. “David, it’s crying.”

David grit his teeth. “Yes, _thank you,_ I’d noticed.” Creeping an infinitesimal step closer, he nudged the plastic front of the carrier with the toe of his boot. “There, there, little bald person.” 

The wailing grew louder. David sprang away from the carrier, wringing his hands.

“Maybe it needs to be picked up,” Johnny suggested from behind him, and David couldn’t help but notice his father was now standing significantly further away than where he’d been stood half a second ago. Johnny waved a hand at the carrier. “Pick it up, David. Try that.”

David stared at his father in disbelief. “You have _got_ to be kidding me.” When Johnny continued to stare back at him, no other suggestions forthcoming, David turned back to the baby carrier and bit his lip. Gingerly, and with great reluctance, he reached out his ring-laden hand and picked it up. Surprised with how heavy the carrier was, David spun around to face his father, the arm holding the carrier fully extended in front of him, his face twisting up with panic. “Now what?”

Johnny appeared stumped by his question, and David spared a moment to give silent thanks to his old nanny, Adelina. He never would’ve survived his childhood otherwise, that much was clear.

The baby’s cries ratcheted up in volume. David and Johnny stared down at it with identical looks of alarm and revulsion.

Suddenly, Johnny snapped his fingers. “Swing! You need to swing it, David.” He mimed the motion with his own arm, and David transferred his look of revulsion from the baby over to his father. Johnny repeated the action, oblivious to his son’s death stare. “You spent days in your swing when you were a baby and Adelina had that brief hospital stay, and you absolutely loved it.”

“Sounds to me like it was less ‘enjoyment’ and more ‘coping mechanism,’” David retorted, but nevertheless he began swinging the carrier with stiff, jerky movements of his arm. Already he could feel the sweat forming at his hairline. He hoped this worked quickly, he did not have the upper body strength required to keep this momentum going for long.

“Less like you’re swinging a baseball bat, David, and more like a golf club.”

David shot his father a frustrated look. “Do I look like a man who understands sports references?”

“Well,” Johnny floundered, “pretend it’s one of your mother’s alligator handbags, then…”

“Okay, I think that’s enough suggestions coming from _you,_ thanks --”

Amidst all the bickering and arm-swinging, the baby’s cries continued to grow in volume. They’d grown so loud that even the most self-absorbed members of the Rose family could no longer ignore them, and with the sound of two doors squeaking open, Moira and Alexis joined the fray.

“Okay,” Alexis sniffed, her hair towel gone and one eye smudged black at the waterline, “whatever’s happening out here? Is detrimental to my line application, and I’m wearing the wrong skirt to pull off this sort of look.”

Moira, as usual, was a bit more blunt. “What is that reprehensible caterwauling? Has someone trod on David’s Giacomettis again?”

David pulled a face at his mother, outraged on behalf of his shoes. “First off? They were my Magnanni loafers, and the leather was never the same again! Second,” Here David physically stumbled, the force of his swinging arm creating a pendulum with the baby carrier that was starting to get away from him. “Second?” he panted, raising his voice to be heard over the warbling cries. “I have never, _in my life,_ ‘caterwauled.’”

Moira and Alexis both came to a stop on either side of Johnny, their eyes trained on the carrier swinging from David’s hand.

“Um?” Alexis tilted her head to the side. “Ew.”

It took Moira longer to recognize the baby carrier for what it was. An alarming concept, for a mother of two. “Oh, John!” she finally gasped, her eyes widening as her hand clutched dramatically at Mr. Rose’s lapel. “Does that tackily-adorned holder contain within it someone’s bebe?”

“I’m afraid so, sweetheart.”

“It’s an infestation!” Moira cried.

Alexis clutched at her shirt and hopped from foot to foot, her eyes darting around the room as though she expected more babies to scurry out from underneath the beds.

“I’d hardly call one rogue baby an infestation, Moira,” Johnny argued. “There’s simply been a mix-up, that’s all. Someone’s left it here by mistake.”

“Uh, hello?” David waved his free arm around, gaining the attention of his family members. “Can somebody do something? Because this _mistake,_ ” he nodded his head at the baby, “is making my arm go numb.” Unable to take the physical exertion any longer, David dropped the carrier onto the floor and stretched out his back, wincing.

Back on the ground once more, the baby’s cries grew to an almost deafening volume. Moira clutched at her neck. “This simply will not do!” she declared. “I have an opening night to prepare for, and I cannot do that with all this squalling happening next door! You should put it back where you found it, you two, posthaste.”

“We can’t just leave it outside, Moira,” Johnny said, his tone dubious. “What will the guests think?”

The Roses collectively stared down at the blue carrier, watching in silence as the bawling infant squirmed and kicked beneath its blankets.

“Maybe David should take it out?” Alexis finally suggested, and the glare David shot her could have melted the skin right off her face.

“Take it out? I’m not taking anything out!” David paused, before conceding, “That sounded better in my head, but all of you still know what I meant!” He looked back down at the carrier, barely repressing a shudder at the thought of actually handling the baby. He had no idea where the child had come from, for all he knew it could be crawling with infectious diseases. Like the bird flu. Or Zika.

Johnny, however, perked up immediately. “Yes, Alexis, yes,” he said, nodding at his daughter, who preened happily back. Catching David’s look of abject horror, Johnny shrugged helplessly, “We have to do something, David, it’ll wake up the entire town if we don’t stop its crying soon.”

David swept out a hand. “Be my guest! No one’s stopping you from picking it up!”

“Well.” Looking suddenly uncomfortable, Johnny’s eyes darted between David and the carrier. He coughed delicately. “Well I would, son, but you see my back has this twinge in it...” 

“Somebody needs to do something!” Alexis said anxiously, bouncing on the spot while her hands twisted in the fabric of her skirt. She stood on tiptoe to peek down at the carrier over David’s shoulder, and something in her expression softened by the smallest fraction. “It must be so uncomfortable, the poor little gnome, surrounded by all that cheap polyblend.”

David flapped his hands at his sister. “Then pick it up!”

“Ew, David, no! You pick it up!”

“Me? Why _me_?”

“Finders keepers, David. You opened the door.”

David gaped at her in disbelief. “ _Because you were hogging the bathroom_!” he snarled, waving his arms around.

It was around this time that Moira, finally overcome from the stress of the morning, let out with her own piercing, dissonant wail. 

The crescendo of noise swept down David’s shoulders, jangling along his already over-wrought nerves. He pressed his balled-up fists against his cheeks, the blood in his temples pounding. “Oh, my god, fine. _Fine!_ ” he finally snapped, shaking out his hands and glaring at each of his family members in turn. “I will take it out!” Steeling his shoulders, he crouched down next to the baby carrier, took in a calming breath through his nose, and lifted up the blanket.

It was impressive, seeing something so small make so much noise. Clad in a pastel yellow onesie and a knitted white hat, the baby waved its minuscule fists around its head and kicked out its legs as it wailed, eyes scrunched closed in a reddened, squashy little face. A set of bulky belts and complicated-looking buckles strapped the baby into the seat, and David paused to eye the restraint system dubiously. He was positive that nothing short of an engineering degree was going to get the baby out of that constricting mess.

Alexis leaned over David’s back, humming curiously. “I think you need to push the red button, David,” she said while pointing over David’s shoulder, and David slapped away her hand as he hissed, “ _Do not rush me!_ ”

Moira, who’d calmed down once it’d become clear that she herself would not have to handle the noisy infant, was now observing the situation before her with a detached sort of interest. “I simply cannot conceive how someone could willingly leave their suckling at the threshold of our feckless David,” she said to Johnny, catching it when David threw a glare at her over his shoulder. “Nothing personal, dear,” she simpered, “but unless you hold a familial bond with this bebe, it makes no sense whatsoever why anyone would leave its care in your inproficient hands.”

“Alexis lives here too, you know,” David reminded her, and Moira’s eyes slid over to her daughter in faint surprise, as though only now noticing her presence. Alexis harrumphed at her. “Besides,” David added with a grunt, his hands struggling to unhook the straps from the harness, “the last woman I slept with was Stevie, so unless she has the gestation period of an elephant...”

“I beg your pardon?”

The four Roses looked up; in the open doorway stood Stevie, wearing her typical uniform of comfortable-looking clothes and long-suffering expression, complexion a little paler than usual but otherwise unaffected. Unlike David and his numerous eye bags, her heavy night of drinking was not immediately apparent.

David and his eye bags hated her just a little bit.

“Stevie!” Johnny exclaimed, sounding equal parts surprised and relieved by her unexpected appearance. “What’re you doing here?”

Stevie held up her phone. “My email kept going off,” she replied, in that halting, slow way of hers. “Someone on Yelp keeps sending the motel messages, something about excessive noise, specifically --” she squinted down at the screen, “-- caterwauling?” She stared down at David, watching while he struggled with the carrier’s bindings. “Is that a baby?”

Johnny rounded on his wife. “Did you negatively review the motel to get Stevie to come and help us? That affects our star rating, Moira! How many did you send?”

Stevie held up seven fingers, and Johnny gasped, “Moira!”

Mrs. Rose spread her arms wide defensively; one of her hands still clutched a cell phone within its grasp. “Well, I’m sorry, John,” she cried, sounding anything but, “but somebody had to do something! The success of Cabaret depends solely on its director being well-rested and clear-headed! And anyway, who better to care for the decrepit and woefully abandoned but our dear Stevie?”

Stevie blinked between the Rose parents, looking nonplussed. “I don’t even know what ‘caterwauling’ means.”

“It means ‘to make an ungodly noise the likes of which man has never heard before,’” David informed her, his head half-stuck beneath the shade covering the top of the baby carrier. “Also, ‘like cats in heat.’” The plastic piece David was futzing with finally clicked apart, and he whooped. “Yes! I got the bastard. Sorry,” he added as an aside to the baby, grimacing at his poor choice in words.

The baby caterwauled back.

Alexis loomed over him again, her blonde hair brushing against his shoulder and making him twitch. “There’s still the buckle between its knees, David, see? Right there...”

“Drink bleach, Alexis.”

“Is anybody going to explain what David is doing to that baby?” Stevie asked the room at large. “Or why he even has one in the first place?”

“It’s certainly not by choice!” David griped, just as the buckle clicked open in his hands. “Somebody left it on the doorstep, and I’m the hapless fool that answered when they knocked!” His fingers shook as he pushed the straps away from the baby’s shoulders, wrapped his hands beneath its arms and slowly, hesitantly lifted it out of its carrier. 

The crying diminished almost instantly.

“Oh, my god!” Alexis crooned, clasping her hands beneath her chin.

“Oh, my _god,_ ” David said, horrified, as he held the baby at arm’s length in front of him. 

Its chubby legs were scrunched up against its body, its diapered butt sticking out behind it. It looked impossibly small once removed from the carseat, and David watched with trepidation as a dark blue eye popped open and eyed him balefully. 

Behind him Alexis “aww’d”, and a light flashed above him. David blinked and looked up at Stevie, who was holding out her phone, smirking at him. “This one’s going straight to Patrick,” she told David, uncharacteristically gleeful.

Momentarily forgetting what he was doing, David tried to lunge for the phone, the thought of his unedited visage bared in stark relief for his boyfriend to see too horrible to conceive. He stopped short, however, when the jostling movement caused the baby he was holding to squeeze its eyes closed, wrinkle up its forehead, and double down on its intense, squawking cries.

“David, what did you do?” Johnny remonstrated, watching with wide eyes as David scrambled to his feet, his elbows locked, the baby held awkwardly between his hands.

“I pissed it off somehow!” David paced between his family members, trying his best to foist his yowling burden onto one of them. “Obviously it doesn’t like me, somebody else take it!”

“Ew, David, ew!” Alexis squeezed her arms to her body and squealed when David approached her; he turned to Moira, who immediately feigned a dizzy spell and slumped into a nearby chair; and Johnny nearly tripped over Alexis’s bed in his haste to back away.

David glowered at his family, his chest heaving; he could feel a vein throbbing in his forehead. “I won’t forget this,” he promised them, voice hushed.

Stevie, who’d used David’s distraction to her advantage by snapping a couple more pictures, eventually took pity on her friend and beckoned him over. “David, come here.”

Relief washing over him, David nearly tripped over himself in his haste to get to Stevie. “Oh, thank _god_ …” He frowned in confusion when, instead of taking the squalling infant from his arms, Stevie guided him into pressing it gently against his own shoulder. 

“Uh, what’re you doing?” he asked, voice rising in panic at the first touch of the warm, staggeringly small body against his shirt. “Do you see what I’m _wearing_?” He tried to pull away even as his hands fumbled to hold the baby securely against his chest. “This is dry clean only!”

“Make sure you support their neck,” Stevie told him, ignoring David’s objections as she configured his hands so that one supported beneath the baby’s butt, and the other cupped the back of its head.

“Okay, but what do I do if it starts leaking?” David asked, wincing as the baby squawked into his ear.

Once again, his concerns were soundly ignored. “Try bouncing a bit,” Stevie suggested, demonstrating the motion and rolling her eyes when David continued to stare at her, unimpressed. "I had a lot of younger cousins growing up. Trust me, David.”

Feeling uncertain, and more than a little foolish, David bent his knees and began to bounce. Surprisingly, miraculously, _blessedly_ , the baby fell quiet.

Johnny clapped his hands together. “Well done, Stevie!” he cried, cutting off when he noticed the three identical scathing glares David, Moira, and Alexis were sending him. Clearing his throat, Johnny continued in a much quieter, more sedate voice, “Very impressive, Stevie. Very impressive.”

“It’s just basic baby care, Mr. Rose,” Stevie shrugged. “No big deal.” 

“My dad’s idea of good parenting involves visitation hours and forgetting to send home birthday presents while vacationing in the Maldives,” David told her, still bouncing awkwardly on the spot. “To him and my mother, you’re basically the Messiah.”

Johnny frowned at his son, but didn’t deny it.

“That’s… not weird at all,” Stevie said after a brief pause. She took a step backward and gestured to the door. “Is there anything else you need, or can I go back to playing Candy Crush?”

"You could help by taking this thing off my hands," David said, and he tried to communicate with his eyes how the future of their friendship rested on her response.

Stevie's mouth twitched. "I'd rather try my hand at caterwauling."

David stared at her. Apparently, she hadn't received the message. Alexis raised her hand. “I have something you can do,” she said, and before David could process what was happening, she was scurrying her way past him, purse in hand. “You can drop me off at Ted’s place. We’re supposed to be picking up iodine tablets for our trip. I’m not _quite_ sure what those are,” she admitted, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers while she pondered, before giving a careless shrug, “but if they’re anything like the pills I accidentally took that one time I went to Burning Man, then our trip is going to be _so fun_.” She emphasized her last two words by booping Stevie twice on the nose. 

Stevie, who was more than used to the Roses and their antics by now, suffered through the boops while looking only mildly uncomfortable.

David, on the other hand, was feeling more than a little vexed. “Hello?” he said, staring after Alexis, who gazed uncomprehendingly back at him. “You’re going to leave, just like that, while the rest of us have to deal with _this_?” He dipped his head to the side, indicating the baby.

“Not all of us, dear,” said Moira, who’d produced her own handbag out of nowhere and was now slipping a pair of sunglasses onto her nose. “As much as I wish I could stay and help you with your infantile dilemma, alas. The theater calls." She bestowed a pitying smile on her eldest child, and David’s mouth dropped open in betrayal. "Have courage, David!”

“That dizzy spell really cleared up nicely for you, huh?” David snarked, pivoting on his heel so he could adequately glare a hole through the side of his mother’s head as she made her way across the room. 

Moira fluttered a hand at him. “There’s a lesson to be learned in all of life’s tribulations, dear." She touched a finger to the side of her nose. "Next time I do believe you’ll think twice when a stranger comes knocking on your door.”

David scowled at her. “Fine, go ahead and leave with the other two _traitresses_ over there,” he called, his bouncing turning almost manic as he glared hatefully at the three women in the doorway. “It’s times like these where you learn who your true family is.” He turned back around just in time to catch Johnny trying to sneak into the other room. “Where do you think _you’re_ going?” 

“Uh,” His escape attempt foiled, Johnny rocked back on his heels, fumbling to come up with an adequate excuse. “Well David, with Stevie leaving her post at the desk, I need to be in the office for check-outs.”

“I have a store to open!” A fact which none of his family seemed to care about at all. “I’m already forty-five minutes late! What am I supposed to do with this thing? Bring it with me?” The thought alone didn’t bear repeating. 

The other four shared a look. “You could… call someone?” Alexis suggested.

“‘Call someone?’” David repeated, his face rearranging itself and, oh good, the howler monkey look was back. “You think I should ‘call someone.’ Who? Who should I call, Alexis? Is there a baby pick-up program I’m unaware of? Like trash? Should I call the baby trash pick-up people?”

“I don’t know, David, the only other time I had to deal with a baby was when that sketchy Ukranian tour guide tried to sell me one in Moldova.”

Johnny immediately began interrogating his daughter about how she'd ended up in Modolva, which Alexis waved off with a negligent, “Nineteen was a trying age for me, Dad.”

“You okay, David?” Stevie asked, her tone innocent even as her mouth struggled to withhold a laugh. She motioned at him with her hand, “Because your head is starting to do that thing where it bobs around uncontrollably…”

“I’m aware of what my head is doing!” David snapped, mid-bob, and the baby in his arms startled. “Oh, god.” Eyes widened in fear, David looked down at his shoulder; the baby was really starting to wriggle now, its arms moving restlessly against David’s shirt as two tiny feet kicked out a fitful rhythm along his stomach. “Oh god, it’s moving. It’s moving! What do I do when it’s moving?” he asked, looking up imploringly --

\-- into an empty room.

Horrorstruck, David stumbled his way out onto the walk, just in time to inhale the cloud of dust kicked up by the Lincoln’s tires as his mother peeled out of the parking lot. Coughing and sputtering, David staggered his way back into clean air, watching through stinging eyes as his father's retreating back disappeared into the office. A car honked, and David looked up; Alexis was waving goodbye from the passenger seat of Stevie’s car.

“Good luck, David!” she called through the open window.

“I hope you get eaten by a tortoise!” David shouted back. “... the hell am I gonna do now?” he asked himself. He turned around in a circle, bouncing his arms incessantly, desperate for someone to take this wailing banshee child off him.

Something pinged in David's back pocket. It took him forty-three harrowing seconds to maneuver the baby successfully into one arm -- there’d been more than one near-drop, but minimal crying from either of them -- but soon enough David was fishing out his phone, and unlocking the screen with a trembling thumb.

It was a text from Stevie. **Talk to Roland.**

David made a face. Him? Willingly converse with Roland Schitt? Hard pass.

Another text was coming through, the indicator dots blinking at the bottom of the screen.

**Avoid touching the soft spot on top of the baby’s head.**

David felt his eyes bug out of his skull. “Avoid touching the _what?_ ”

Another ping. Still reeling over Stevie’s second, _horrifying_ missive, David swiped open the third message.

It was from Patrick, David realized, his heart doing the same giddy flop it did whenever his boyfriend’s picture popped onto the screen. There were no words, though, only a picture. The front of Rose Apothecary to be exact, with its windows darkened, its floor deserted, and the CLOSED sign hanging jauntily in the middle of the front door.

Wincing, David checked the time, then cursed. At this point, he was convinced that his morning could not possibly get any worse.

A door opened to his left, and Roland Schitt strolled out. “Hey, Dave! Just the man I wanted to see.”

Son of a _bitch_.


	2. David Walks a Baby

Twenty minutes passed before David managed to slip away from Roland, and during that time the baby had cried itself to sleep, both of David’s arms had long gone numb, and his distaste for the uncouth mayor of Schitt’s Creek had increased tenfold. How a man pairing that complexion with that haircut could act so oblivious to their boorish ways blew David’s mind. No one should be able to use that many nautical-themed euphemisms to describe their sex life in a single sentence and get away with it. No one.

David would never be able to look Jocelyn in the eye again.

What was even worse was during that long, _excruciating_ exchange Patrick had ignored all the SOS texts David kept sending him. And there had been _a lot_ of texts. David didn’t want to go so far as to say his boyfriend’s silence was “pointed,” but there was a high chance David would need to do some fast talking once he got to the store.

 _If_ he ever made it to the store, that is.

“This is not how I pictured my morning ending up,” David panted as he trudged along the road that led into the main part of town, his arms laden down with more baby paraphernalia than he’d known existed pre-motel baby. After laughing for a solid three minutes at David and the current situation he found himself in, Roland had “graciously” loaned him Roland Jr.’s extra diaper bag -- but only after first making David promise he’d reimburse any used items. 

David hadn’t wanted the baby bag, because having the baby bag made the situation seem too real. The existence of the baby bag implied that David would need to actually care for his unlikely charge, that its wellbeing was officially in his sweaty, panicstricken hands. This, understandably, was a daunting realization for David. If the tamagotchis had taught him anything, it was that he didn’t do well with caring for other helpless, needy creatures. Being the helpless, needy creature? That was where David thrived, and there was no extra room aboard this particular Cripplingly Dependent Train, thanks.

A bird chirped and swooped merrily above his head, someone in a car waved at him as they passed, and David cursed them both before pausing to lean his weight against a signpost, needing a breather. Wearing dark suede outside during an unseasonably warm spring had been a mistake, he could see that now. 

His sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his sweaty nose, David eyed the bag and baby carrier dumped unceremoniously at his feet with distaste. “I can’t believe people willingly subject themselves to this,” he grumbled to himself, and the baby carrier gurgled back at him. “No offense,” David told it, after a pause. “It’s nothing personal, motel baby. I’m sure that deep down you’re a… _nice_ person-type thing. It’s probably a coincidence that your parents abandoned you, and nothing against you personally.” This conversation was starting to take a dark turn. David cleared his throat, before continuing, “I’m just not much of a -- a _mess_ person?” The mere thought of spit-up milk and leaky diapers had David reflexively gagging, and he’d heard from somewhere that young children had perpetually sticky hands, which was seven kinds of disturbing and wrong. “I’m also not emotionally available enough right now to deal with all my family’s baggage, let alone yours, so.”

The baby gurgled again. “Tell me about it,” David sighed, before heaving himself back to his feet. Diaper bag and baby carrier in hand, he walked on.

Halfway to the store, David decided to try Patrick’s cell one more time. He stood a much higher chance of getting Patrick to forgive him if Patrick couldn’t physically see David’s facial expressions while he apologized, plus talking on the phone held the added bonus of distracting David from the fact that his arms felt like they were going to fall off.

Patrick picked up after the fourth ring. “David.” 

David winced at the tone in his boyfriend’s voice. That did not bode well. “Heyyy, you.” He cast about for something else to say, something that wouldn’t incriminate him further, but his mind pulled up on a complete blank. _Think, David, think._ “How’s your morning so far?” ... _Fuck_.

There was a lengthy pause before Patrick responded, during which David huffed, and panted, and sweat considerably more than he’d ever be willing to admit; he was seriously beginning to regret his clothing ensemble. “Must be a sight better than yours, considering you’re almost two hours late for work.”

David winced again. “Well see, funny story…”

“D’you want to know what I was thinking to myself as I opened up the store, an hour late, on the one morning this week I’d asked you to do it instead?” Patrick asked, bareling on before David could reply, “I kept thinking, ‘Gee, I sure hope my boyfriend isn’t laying injured in a ditch somewhere, because that’s the only scenario I can come up with where it’d be completely acceptable that he didn’t try calling to tell me he was going to be an hour late opening up the store!’”

David hesitated a moment, before pointing out, “Actually, there’s several other scenarios I can think of where that’d be perfectly acceptable --”

“Injured, David. In a ditch,” Patrick interrupted, his tone clearly exasperated, and David swallowed down the rest of his sentence with a meek _sorry_. “Then, surprise of all surprises, when you did deign to respond to my message, instead of apologizing or offering an explanation, you expected me to save you from a conversation with Roland.”

“Of course I did, have you _met_ that man --?”

“ _And then_ ,” Patrick persisted, really picking up steam now, “to cap it all off, here you are forty minutes later, just now calling me back.”

“Well when you put it that way, it sounds really bad,” David tried to joke, though he didn’t really expect Patrick to laugh.

He wasn’t disappointed. “I can’t help but notice a pattern here, David,” Patrick said, and David closed his mouth with a snap. “It seems like every time I need to be away from the store, a disaster occurs.” 

David made an affronted noise. “I wouldn’t say _every_ time --”

“The robbery?” Patrick said. “The poison oak incident? Our broken sink?”

“Okay, those last two weren’t even my fault!”

“That sink was less than a week old, David,” Patrick reminded him. “A _week_.”

“First of all,” David said, nearly staggering into a fire hydrant when the baby bag dangling from his elbow snagged against some brambles, “the pedestal sink Ronnie replaced it with better fits our overall aesthetic, and I think you know that.” Patrick made a scoffing noise in his ear. David pressed on, “Secondly, she wanted to charge us fifty percent extra for the inconvenience but I talked her down to twenty-five, so really you should be thanking me for that one…” He trailed off, and the silence that met his last statement could only be described as _ominous_.

“It’s been a long morning, David,” Patrick finally said, and his tone spoke of an endless font of patience that, for the first time in his and David’s relationship, was starting to run dry. “The customers were not happy they had to wait, I was supposed to be at that Cabaret workshop twenty minutes ago, my tea went cold before I could drink it and I just really, really need to know what’s going on with you, or else I'm gonna take one of those ridiculous cat scarves you insist on buying and asphyxiate myself with it --”

“I can explain everything!” David interrupted, alarmed at the prospect of Patrick going anywhere near the Himalayan fur scarves. He’d seen Patrick in the throes of an allergic reaction, and the fallout wasn’t pretty. “I have a solid, reasonable explanation for why I’m so late, one that I think you’ll find absolves me of _all_ culpability…”

“ _Hives_ , David,” Patrick told him warningly, and David picked up speed with both his words and his steps at that disturbing reminder.

“I found a baby!” he said, his words ending on a pant as he dragged himself and the baby around a bend in the road; he nearly cried with relief when the first buildings on Main Street popped into view. 

“... You found a baby?”

David nodded his head, heedless of the fact Patrick couldn’t see it. “Yes,” he gasped, “a motel baby. On my doorstep. Alexis was hogging the bathroom, and I was already running late but I couldn’t just _leave_ because the public doesn’t deserve to be subjected to the state of my under-eyes, so I was going to smoke Alexis out but then someone knocked on the door so I answered it, and suddenly there was a lot of crying except everybody kept using the word ‘caterwauling’ which was _very_ distressing, then all my family deserted me and Stevie sicced Roland on me because she’s an actual she-devil, so now I’m dragging a baby and half a nursery along the side of the road, and did you know babies have a self-destruct button on the top of their head?” David finished in a rush, before sucking in a much-needed breath.

It took Patrick so long to respond, David ended up double-checking to make sure the call hadn’t accidentally dropped. “That’s a lot of information you packed into one sentence, David,” he finally said, and David was relieved to note that his boyfriend now sounded more impressed than annoyed. “A baby was left on your doorstep?”

David nodded into the phone again. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“Which your family then left in your care?”

“Ex-family, actually? They’re dead to me now, so.”

Patrick hmm’d. There was another pause, presumably so he could mentally shift through all the information David had spewed his way, before he asked, “And what was that about Stevie and Roland?”

“ _Stevie_ ,” David said, with great venom, “sent Roland after me because Stevie is Stevie and enjoys it when I suffer.”

“Of course, of course,” Patrick agreed, and David squinted his eyes suspiciously; his boyfriend sounded far more amused than the current situation warranted. “And the fact that Roland is the mayor and thus one of the few people in this town with the authority to handle a baby that’s been abandoned on private property probably never even occurred to her.”

“Well, _that_ fact --” Had never actually occurred to him, though David would be damned if he willingly admitted it. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, struggling to come up with an adequate retort. “That fact is a moot point,” he eventually declared, choosing not to hear the very obvious chuckling in his ear. “Regardless of what her intentions may have been, it was a wasted effort. All Roland did was emotionally traumatized me, then saddled me with more baby things than I know what to do with before sending me on my way.” There was even a binder, he’d been told, located somewhere within the depths of the bulging diaper bag. A sort of baby bible, if you will. Lovingly crafted by Roland’s wife Jocelyn and apparently, there were even hand-drawn diagrams.

David had been far too repulsed to ask any follow-up questions.

“To summarize your morning so far,” Patrick said, pulling David away from thoughts of baby binders and diagrams, “you found a baby on your doorstep, your family left you to deal with it, Stevie both trolled and helped you at the same time, which ultimately backfired because Roland is Roland and is a terrible mayor.”

David hummed, making a mental check along all the terrible occurrences that had happened to him so far. “Precisely, yes.”

“And all of this stemmed from Alexis hogging the bathroom?”

“Yes!” Relief coursed through David. Patrick, at least, seemed to understand the depths of his suffering.

“So, basically,” Patrick continued, his tone light, “what you’re saying is if you’d just given up your morning skincare regime for today and let Alexis have the bathroom none of this would’ve happened, you would’ve made it to the store in time to open, and I wouldn’t have been so grossly inconvenienced.”

David stared down at his phone, eyebrows climbing his forehead. That took a turn he wasn’t expecting. He put the phone back to his ear, thinking fast. “... No?”

“It’s a comfort, David, to know that on your list of priorities, the success of our store lies _just_ below how soft your skin looks,” Patrick’s sarcasm was on top form today. “But hey, at least the baby’s cute, right?”

“How, um…” Beyond confused now, and feeling a little as though he’d lost a key thread to their conversation somehow, David looked all around him, almost expecting Patrick to pop out from one of the hedgerows. “How do you… how do you know that? What the baby looks like, how do you know what it looks like?” he finally asked, trying to effect a casual air even as he squinted down a shadowed alley running between two houses.

“I was just admiring the photos Stevie sent me earlier,” Patrick replied, and David’s mouth dropped open in horror. “Funny enough, _she_ managed to call me after all of this went down, and not forty minutes later like some people I know.” Patrick let out a low whistle. “You look like a natural, by the way, holding the baby so confidently. I honestly didn’t know your eyebrows could go that high.”

It was slowly dawning on David that he was being trolled.

“My favorite part is the bit of video she sent me --”

“Yep, okay,” David interrupted, finding his voice, “you’ve known this whole time. Finally put that together for myself, thanks.” He rounded the corner of the Cafe Tropical, and Rose Apothecary’s windows gleamed at him from across the street. “Any specific reason why you didn’t tell me that in the first place?”

When Patrick answered, his voice sounded infuriatingly smug. “Oh, you know. I thought it’d be more fun this way.”

“Mm, yes. This has been loads of fun for me. So much fun. I’m almost choking on it, _that’s_ how much fun I’m having with this conversation.” Patrick was openly laughing at him now, and David’s mouth pursed with annoyance. “I’m hanging up on you, though please feel free to continue lambasting me in twenty seconds when I walk through the door.”

“Oh, I look forward to it,” Patrick replied, voice full of his grin.

He was still grinning, in fact, when David staggered through the front doors half a minute later, sweat dripping down his forehead, his sunglasses dangling from one ear, and his arms practically deadweight at his sides.

Patrick opened his arms wide. “Hey, Dad.”

David, who’d dropped his cargo onto the floor and was now bent at the knees, heaving in breaths (getting both baby and bag through the front door undamaged had proven more cumbersome than he’d anticipated), paused long enough to glare at his boyfriend. “Never…” he wheezed, “... call me that… _again_.”

Patrick rounded the check-out counter and approached David’s side. “Nice walk?” he asked, the unassuming tone at odds with just how cheeky his expression was. He held out a towel, which David accepted with great dignity. 

“Never felt lighter, actually,” was David’s lofty reply, as he wiped at his sopping face; he tried to hide the fact his knees were trembling. He straightened out his back, wincing slightly at the stretch. “Think I sweat off half my body weight.”

“And here I thought it was that new-parent glow,” Patrick quipped, before raising his hands defensively and chuckling when David whipped the towel threateningly in his direction. “Alright, alright. I’m sorry. Last one, I promise.”

“You’re not cute,” David scowled, though he did dip his head to accept Patrick’s welcoming kiss. He did so grudgingly, and with protest; David knew a silencing tactic when he saw one. “Mm. It’s been a very trying morning, and I’m very stressed. I am!” he insisted, after Patrick drew away with a snort. David waved an accusing hand at the baby carrier. “The thing’s been crying at me all morning!”

“Seems pretty quiet to me,” Patrick observed, before squatting down and peering into the carrier. He reached out a hand and wiggled one of the baby’s tiny little feet. “Hey there, little guy.”

Patrick’s voice went impossibly soft, and something inside David’s chest clenched. He immediately chalked up the unorthodox reaction to heat stroke, and cleared his throat with a harsh cough. “Don’t let it fool you. That thing can shatter glass with one wail.”

“I don’t believe that, he’s completely harmless. Aren’t you?” Patrick started pulling exaggerated faces at the baby, his eyes opening as far as they could go, while his mouth shaped itself into a wide “O”; David was very frustrated to realize this ridiculous display hadn’t diminished the attraction he felt for his boyfriend in the slightest. “Yes, you are. Yes, you are!” Patrick reached confident hands into the carrier as he spoke, and when he stood up a few seconds later, he was holding the baby expertly in his arms.

Patrick sniffed at something, then grimaced. “That smell sure isn’t harmless, though.” He held the baby out expectantly to David.

David didn’t take it; he wasn’t falling for that one again. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to hand you the baby.”

“I can see that,” David said slowly, the distaste obvious in his expression. “Why?”

“Because he needs his diaper changed.”

“ _And_?”

“And who better to do that than his Uncle David?” Patrick sing-songed, his tone cajoling.

David stared Patrick down, impervious to his wiles. “Hard no.”

“David…”

“Don’t ‘David’ me! This whole _situation_ ,” David said, gesturing with his arms; as a hand-talker, he was very glad to have them free again, “has been very difficult for me to handle, and I need some time to myself to decompress.” He watched as Patrick pulled the baby back in closer against his shoulder, grudgingly impressed; unlike David, he hadn’t almost-dropped the thing _once_. “All the crying has been _very_ jarring to my psyche.”

“Uh-huh, I’m sure,” Patrick said, one of his hands patting absently at the baby’s back. “Did the police have any opinions on your jarring psyche when you called them?”

“You know, I thought about pressing charges against Alexis, but I don’t know if they’d stick...”

“No, David. About the baby. You did call them about the baby, didn’t you?” Patrick asked, letting out a defeated sigh when David stared guiltily back at him. “You didn’t call them.”

“Jarring to my psyche!” David repeated, twisting his hands together as his lip pulled up into his signature awkward grimace. 

“How d’you think the baby feels?”

“It seems to be having the time of its life right now, soaking up all my boyfriend’s attention!” Where was the sympathy, David wondered, the compassion? All this nitpicking about what David _should have_ done -- was it too much to ask for a pat on the back and a, “Well done, David”? He’d found a baby on his doorstep! He’d brought it into his room, given it shelter! He even _held_ the thing, for god’s sakes. How could David be expected to remain clear-headed and fully cognitive during all that emotional trauma?

Patrick was staring at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’m sorry,” he began, his tone incredulous, “but are you saying you’re jealous about a _baby_?”

David scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You are!” Patrick crowed. “You’re jealous of a baby.”

“I’m jealous of people who got to wash their faces this morning, that’s what I’m jealous of.”

The baby burbled happily in Patrick’s arms. David eyed it distrustfully.

Patrick was shaking his head at him. “Unbelievable,” he told David, who held up his hands in a silent _what?_ gesture. “There were five people in that motel room, and not one of you thought to involve the police?” His boyfriend sounded legitimately stunned.

“You’ve met my family before, I don’t know why you’re so shocked by this.”

Patrick opened his mouth to argue, but seemed to think better of it. “You know what? Fair point.” He pondered for a moment, before apparently coming to a decision. “Alright, David. Take the baby.”

“Oh, no. We’re not doing this song and dance again.” 

“I need you to take the baby,” Patrick insisted, “so that I can call the proper authorities.”

David crossed his arms. “Why can’t _I_ call the authorities?”

“Do you know which department to ask for?”

“The unwanted baby department,” David replied, after a beat of silence. “Obviously.” 

This time it was Patrick’s turn to look unimpressed.

David threw up his hands. “Oh my god, fine!” He allowed Patrick to place the baby back in his arms, gagging immediately when a wall of the foulest odor he’d ever smelled besieged him. Had something crawled into the baby's carrier and died? “Ugh, that is _vile_.” Much like the first time he tried this, David held the baby at arm’s length, making a face when it started crying again. “What’s wrong with it?”

Patrick looked up from his phone, which he’d grabbed from behind the counter. “He needs a diaper change.”

David stared at Patrick, waiting for further instructions. When no more information was forthcoming, David prodded, “And I do that how?”

“Well, David. You take the baby, and you take the diaper, and then -- now, here comes the tricky part, so really try to pay attention -- you fasten the diaper to the part of the baby where the poop comes out...”

David walked away from him. Voice shaking with mirth, Patrick called helpfully at his retreating back, “You forgot the diaper bag, David!”

___________________________________

Patrick was just hanging up the phone when David emerged from the back, a freshly-changed baby in his arms and a haunted look on his face.

Patrick grinned at him. “Things go well?”

“We’re going to need to call in a biohazard company to clean our bathroom,” David replied with a shudder. It turned out that babies liked to wriggle and move around as soon as you got the dirty diaper off of them. By the end of the whole ordeal, the diaper David had wrangled the baby into was barely holding on, both of them had been near tears, and there had been a significant amount of poo spatter left behind. 

David made a mental note to burn his clothes when he got back to the motel.

“That didn’t take you nearly as long as I thought it would,” Patrick remarked. “Did the little guy give you any trouble?”

“Little girl, actually,” David informed him, “and please don’t ask me how I found out, it’s been a traumatic day.” Dropping the diaper bag behind the cash register, he held the baby out to Patrick, whose smile widened even as he took a pointed step back. David pouted at him, before looking round for the next best thing: the baby carrier. He found it perched on one of the display tables, and sent Patrick a bitchy look. “That’s unsanitary.”

“Says the man who napalmed our bathroom with baby feces.”

“Honestly? I’m shocked I made it out alive,” David straight-faced, which Patrick seemed to find endlessly amusing. David shot him another look. “I’m calling her Chartreuse, by the way.”

Both of Patrick’s eyebrows lifted at that. “How’d you figure out her name? Did you find a note?”

“No, that’s the color the diaper was when I opened it.”

That startled a laugh out of Patrick, which quickly morphed into a cough once he realized David wasn't trying to be funny. “Well, I have good news, and I have bad news,” he said, watching in fascination as David began the daunting task of placing the baby into her carrier without grievously injuring either of them.

“What’s the good news?” David asked as he tucked the blanket in around Chartreuse’s warm body, his hands frozen unsurely above her as he waited for her to settle, willing her to fall back asleep. A blue eye popped open and glared up at David, as though just to spite him.

“I got in touch with child services in Thornbridge, and they’re on their way to pick up little,” Patrick bit back a smile, “Chartreuse.”

David blinked over at him. “Well, that’s fantastic,” he said, straightening up. Suddenly his day was looking much brighter. There was a light at the end of this hellishly-long tunnel, thank _god_. He walked back over to Patrick, a giddy spring in his step. “And the bad part?”

Patrick braced his hands on the counter in front of him, his face contrite. “The soonest they can get here is three.”

Just like that, the giddy feeling was gone. “Three _o’clock_?” David demanded, stopping on the opposite side of the counter, and Patrick nodded solemnly. “But that’s almost --” He cast his eyes around wildly around the store, looking for a clock.

“Four hours,” Patrick supplied helpfully.

“ _Four hours_?” David repeated, appalled. “What are we supposed to do with it for four hours?”

“She’s a baby, David. All you have to do is watch her, make sure she doesn’t cry too much, maybe feed her once or twice… which now that I mention it could be a problem, since we don’t sell formula here.”

David shooed away Patrick’s concerns with an impatient handwave. “Never mind that, Roland said there’s some chilled bottles in the diaper bag.” What they needed to focus their energies on was the _four hours_ part, _my god_.

“Roland had baby formula on hand?”

David tilted a sardonic eyebrow at him. “Try Jocelyn’s breast milk.”

Patrick seemed both perturbed and disgusted by this tidbit. “Why was Roland driving around with bottles of Jocelyn’s breast milk in his truck?”

“Funny enough, I didn’t ask,” David replied, sending his boyfriend a pointed look. “Feeling bad about ignoring my SOS texts yet?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Patrick admitted, looking disturbed. He stared off into the middle distance a moment, before coming back to the present with a shake of his head. “Well, David,” he said, clapping his hands together and stepping out from behind the cash register. “Good luck.”

David followed his progress with wide eyes, spinning on his heel as Patrick made his way to the front door. “Good luck? What d’you mean, _good luck_?”

“I’ve got that Cabaret workshop over at Town Hall,” Patrick told him, gesturing out the door with both thumbs. “Remember?”

David gaped at him. “You’re just going to abandon me like this, in my time of need?” First his family, now his boyfriend -- David had never felt more betrayed in his life.

"Your mother's waiting for me, David, and frankly she scares me more than you do."

“But I played a contact sport for you!”

Patrick quirked an indulgent smile at him. “Baseball is not a contact sport, David.”

“Yeah, well,” David sputtered, “tell that to the baseball-sized lump on my back!”

"If I remember correctly, that was your dad's fault." Looking thoroughly amused by his boyfriend’s antics, Patrick walked up to David and started rubbing his shoulders. David tried his best to remain aloof and unaffected. 

He didn’t succeed.

“It’s only until three,” Patrick reminded him, his voice low, and David whined as he slumped petulantly into Patrick's space, pressing his forehead into the crook of his boyfriend's neck. Patrick gave his shoulders a comforting squeeze. “If anything happens, I’m just a phone call away.”

“Tell that to me after the shop burns down.”

Patrick's lips pressed against the soft spot behind David's ear. “You’ve made it this far on your own already. What’s a few more hours?”

“In concerns to my failing grip on reality? Quite a bit, actually,” David replied, completely serious.

Patrick clapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit.” Pecking David on the cheek, Patrick side-stepped him and made for the front of the store.

“I’m probably not going to survive this, you know!” David called after him, in a last ditch effort to play to Patrick’s sympathies.

“I’ll remember you fondly!” Patrick tossed back, before disappearing through the door.

David crossed his arms, his eyes roving irritably up and down the shelves of his pristine store. “He thinks he’s funny,” he told Chartreuse, since it was more socially acceptable to speak to a baby than it was to oneself. “Well, the egg’s really going to be on his face when he comes back to a boyfriend who’s gone completely off the rails.”

He could handle this, right? David asked himself, biting his lip. It was only for a few hours, like Patrick said, and anyway, what could possibly happen in four hours?

Chartreuse burbled beside him.

“You said it, sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more after this! I might also have the vaguest of ideas for a little epilogue, but may just include it in the last installment!
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated! Thanks for reading!


	3. David Befriends a Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twyla Sands makes an appearance in this chapter because she is a literal ray of sunshine and I couldn't not include her.
> 
> There will be an epilogue after this, which I am posting as soon as I finish formatting.

David stood behind the cash register of Rose Apothecary, one hand braced against his hip while the other tapped a frenetic rhythm against the countertop. This is good, he thought to himself, as his eyes darted from the lady browsing the face cream displays to the entrance of the store, to the baby carrier set atop the counter at his elbow. Things were going well. The shop was open, the customers were cheerful, and Chartreuse was blessedly silent. Nothing disastrous had happened between the time Patrick left him alone and now; no crying, no diaper incidents, no self-combusting fires -- a scenario which David’s over-fraught mind had been abnormally worried about, don’t ask him why, he wasn’t in charge of these things -- and slowly but surely, David could feel his confidence building. He could handle this, he assured himself, his fingers tap-tapping away. He could _totally handle this_. Bring it on, world, because today David Rose was at the top of his game. He was confident, he was _fierce_ , and he was ready to kick some ass, and take some names.

… How long had it been since Patrick left, anyway?

He checked the time. Fifteen minutes. _Fuck_.

There was sudden movement from the baby carrier. David slid his eyes over to it, and spotted two sleepy denim eyes peeking out at him from beneath the blanket. “I really appreciate the calm energy you’re exuding right now,” he told Chartreuse, who continued to stare back at him, unblinking. “It’s helping to settle my nerves.”

Chartreuse kicked out one of her feet and gurgled at him. “Hmm?” David glanced down at his hand, whose fingers were still tapping out their frenzied beat against the counter. “Yeah, believe it or not? But this is the calmest I’ve felt all day.”

Another gurgle. “Thank you for saying that,” David told her, before turning his attention to an approaching customer.

“Is this your little one?” the customer asked as David rang up her purchases. She was staring into the baby carrier with unbridled delight.

His shoulders rolling back defensively, David opened his mouth to give the woman a very succinct and to-the-point _hell no_ , maybe even tack on a _how dare you_ at the end, but before he could she added, “Why don’t you add a couple of those lip balms onto my order? I remember being in your shoes, these little angels can get expensive.” She tweaked one of Chartreuse’s blanketed feet as she spoke.

David’s indignation fell away in an instant. “Oh.” Taking a moment to fiddle with the bracelet dangling from his wrist, David side-eyed the baby carrier; he could feel Chartreuse’s eyes on him, silently judgmental. “That’s… _so_ true. Thank you.” He rang up two lip balms and slipped them into the woman’s tote along with her face creams, before pushing the lot across the counter with a grateful nod. “Anything helps.” 

The lady replied with a kindly smile, and David fought down a tiny squiggle of guilt. “You’re very welcome, dear,” she told him, giving the baby’s foot one more squeeze before grabbing up her items and heading for the exit. “Oh, and by the way,” she added, pausing halfway through the door. When David looked up inquiringly, she gestured at her own face. “Try cold tea bags under your eyes, to help with the swelling. Did wonders for me when my little ones were keeping me up all night.”

The guilt squiggle curled up and died, and David glared after the woman’s retreating back all the way down the street.

“I’m not sorry,” he told Chartreuse, when the baby started burbling at him again, “and I didn’t appreciate your accusing stare just then. Also, don’t expect a thank you for two measly lip balms, because the last baby I dealt with? Helped me win a very lucrative contract for the store, so. You have big shoes to fill, Chartreuse,” David said with a sniff, rocking back on his heels as both his hands tapped their fingers incessantly against the wooden counter. “Big shoes.”

\-----------------------------------

Things went pear-shaped around hour two.

“Do you have this moisturizer in a bigger size?” someone called from a back corner of the store, waving a bottle of face cream in the air.

David, who was at the check-out counter flipping frantically through the baby binder in a desperate attempt to figure out why Chartreuse had started whimpering out of nowhere, squinted over at the customer. He was beginning to feel a tad frazzled. He shook his head impatiently. “I can’t see it when you’re waving it around like that.”

“It’s in a blue bottle,” the customer said, as if describing the packaging would help David somehow.

“They’re all in blue bottles,” David informed her baldly, his eyes flicking obviously along the table the woman was standing next to, where every item of product within reaching distance was, indeed, blue.

The woman continued waving the bottle at him.

Letting out a faint, “Oh, my god,” David closed the baby binder with an impatient snap, and rounded the counter. 

Halfway across the floor, a warbling wail echoed from the check-out area.

“Uh.” David glanced back and forth between the counter and the impatient customer, his frustration climbing. Picking a direction at random, David held up a finger to the woman, said, “One second,” and changed trajectory.

The woman squawked indignantly behind him. “You can’t just ignore a paying customer!”

“I’m not _ignoring_ you,” David retorted, looking over his shoulder at the woman, who was scowling back at him. He flapped a hand in her direction. “That’s literally impossible to do when you keep waving bottles in my face.”

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and in his surprise David nearly ran into a display of succulents. “Does this contain citric acid?” a man with a bushy beard asked him, barely giving David a second to recover before shoving a package of bath salts under his nose. “My wife’s allergic.”

“Um…” Harried and overwhelmed, David reached for the package of bath salts automatically, while behind him Chartreuse’s cries became piercing. Feeling close to crying himself, David shoved the bath salts back at the man with a harassed, “The ingredients are listed on the side.”

He turned, once more, for the counter. “But my wife’s allergic!” the man said bemusedly, at the same time the moisturizer woman screeched, “I was here _first_!” and, pulled into three different directions as he was, David spent the subsequent twelve seconds walking around in a bizarre and confounded circle.

The wailing and yelling were all becoming too much for him to handle. His sanity unraveling before him like a spool of thread, David wrung his hands as he shouted, “ _I can't help all three of you at once!_ ” only to be answered by the sound of smashing glass erupting from another corner of the shop. “Oh, my god, what _now_?” he snarled, whirling on the spot and glaring at the four teenage girls that were standing stock still next to a broken vase, their eyes wide and frightened like a herd of startled deer. Convinced his head was about to explode, David grabbed his face with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut, willing his blood pressure back down to a less aneurysm-inducing level.

Eyes still closed, David inhaled a deep, calming breath through his nose, and rolled the tension out of his shoulders. He could do this. _Pull it together, David._ “I’ll go get the broom,” he told the girls, and when his voice came out, it sounded steady and not at all like he was ten seconds away from checking himself into a psych ward. He turned on his heel, and watched as three more customers meandered their way into the shop.

Fate, David decided right then, was a sadistic mistress, and he her plaything.

Fifteen minutes later the line at the cash register was seven-people deep, another vase had broken, the moisturizer lady was still berating him about his terrible customer service skills, and David was feeling more and more convinced that he wasn’t going to make it out of this day alive.

“That’ll be 37.50,” he told the crotchety customer, shoving three bottles into a bag with one hand as he bounced Chartreuse against his shoulder with the other; neither the customer nor the baby appeared satisfied by his efforts. “Have a pleasant day,” David said, swallowing down his pride and baring his teeth in a vague resemblance of a smile as the customer snatched her change from his hand and harrumphed herself out of the store. “Next?”

The bell jingled above the door -- not that David could hear it, beleaguered as he was by the infant wailing newly-discovered decibels into his ear -- and Twyla of all people stepped into the shop, a takeout bag dangling from one hand.

“Wow,” she said, gazing around the store with a distant sort of smile on her face. “It’s a lot louder in here than I remember it being.” She caught David’s eye, and waved. “Lunch!” she chirped, holding up the bag of to-go containers in response to David’s flabbergasted head bob. “Compliments of a certain special fella of yours.”

“That’s… surprisingly thoughtful of him.” David hadn’t eaten yet today; just the smell of the food was making his stomach gargle. In between cashing out customers, he eyed the to-go bag with interest. “Is there bacon in one of those cartons?” He hoped Twyla said yes; in fact he’d never wished for something more ardently in his life.

“A double order,” Twyla confirmed cheerfully. “Patrick mentioned on the phone that you’d probably worked up an appetite.” She tilted her head to the side. “Have you always had that baby?”

David stared at Twyla, genuinely worried for her. “No,” he said slowly, while handing out change to the customer in front of him. “It’s been a… recent development.” He gave a strained smile to the next person in line. “Hi,” he said, as he rang up their items one-handed. “Sorry about all the noise. This little diva woke up on the wrong side of the dilapidated motel this morning.”

Twyla placed the bag of food onto the counter, leaning her weight on an elbow. “Boy, you must have a good ear for these things,” she said to David, who grimaced distractedly in her direction as he cashed out another order. “Here I am thinking she sounds hungry.”

David almost swallowed his tongue. He whipped his head in Twyla’s direction so rapidly he made himself dizzy. “How do you know that?”

“Well, you just said --”

“Not that,” David said, waving his hand impatiently. “How do you know she sounds hungry?”

“Oh. My mom used to run a daycare in our basement,” Twyla replied with a happy shrug. “I helped her take care of the babies after school.” 

“You worked at a _daycare_?”

“Only until it was shut down,” Twyla told him. “The parents were not happy when they found out about the jewelry-making operation my mom had going on the side, let me tell you. It was pretty devastating, actually.” She shook her head sadly. “Mom breaks a couple child labor laws, and she’s blacklisted from childcare for life.”

“Oh, my god.” David did not know which part of the quirky waitress’s statement to address first. Every last part of it was equally horrifying.

“I can help you with her, if you’d like,” Twyla offered, indicating the line of people stacking up beside her with a tilt of her head. “It looks as though you’ve got your hands full.”

Derek squinted at the waitress, hardly daring to believe his ears; it was almost too good to be true. “You’d do that for me?” he asked her, his voice blank from disbelief and also maybe a smidge of mild suspicion. “Why?” 

Twyla smiled at him. “Because you’re my friend, David.” She opened her arms invitingly. “Just point me to the bottles, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

With Chartreuse’s attention fully occupied by Twyla, David managed through the rest of his afternoon rush with relative ease. After the door had closed behind his final customer and the store was once again empty, David spared a few seconds to breathe, before he grabbed one of the styrofoam cartons containing his lunch and followed Chartreuse’s aggravated cries into the backroom. 

He found Twyla sitting at the little table he and Patrick had shoved into one of the corners, a bottle of milk in one hand and a fussy Chartreuse in her lap.

“I’m sorry, David,” she apologized, after catching sight of him standing in the doorway, half of the sandwich she brought him shoved into his mouth; her expression was despondent. “I tried to get her to take the bottle, but I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“Honestly?” David mumbled through a mouthful of turkey club, “I wouldn’t take it personally, because I have it on good authority she doesn’t like anyone.” He swallowed, and his eyes briefly rolled into the back of his head. “Oh god, that’s the stuff.” Life was always better when there was food. Bless turkey clubs. Bless Patrick. And bless Twyla. 

He shoved the second half into his mouth.

“It’s a weird energy I have, small dogs react to me the same way. Big dogs do too, now that I think about it.” Twyla set the bottle down on the table, and stood up. “You’ll probably have better luck,” she said to David, swapping the baby for the empty food container before he could protest. Or, try to protest, more accurately: David’s mouth was too full of food for him to do much more than sputter unattractively. “She knows you.”

David almost choked on his food. “I don’t think so,” he gasped, backing into a shelf as Twyla advanced on him, bottle held aloft. “I can’t feed other things, Twyla, since it’s not part of my life journey?” He tried to fend her off with a frantic wave of his hand. “It’s a weird thing I have, I can’t really get into it right now, but I had these tamagotchis once, and...” 

“There’s no need to be nervous, David,” Twyla interrupted, smiling kindly at him; David’s eyes flicked warily between her and the bottle. “Clearly she likes you, and that’s half the battle.”

A distressed noise escaped the back of David’s throat. “I appreciate the sentiment, but you are _grossly_ overestimating my likability factor, here.” He grimaced when Twyla managed to grab hold of David’s free hand, forcefully wrapped his fingers around the cylindrical body of the bottle, and pointed the rubber end at the baby’s mouth.

“Make sure you hold it at an angle,” Twyla instructed. “Then, just guide it forward… and there!” she exclaimed as the rubber part popped into Chartreuse’s mouth and the baby immediately began to feed. “See? Easy.”

David watched in bemusement as Chartreuse suckled greedily at the bottle, each of her gulps ending with a satisfied-sounding little sigh, even as she squirmed and kicked and grabbed for more. 

At that moment, David had never related more to a person in his life.

“Pretty easy to take care of a baby once you get the hang of it, huh?” Twyla said, and David nodded slowly back. She was right, he realized, with a tiny little shock. He was taking care of Chartreuse. Had been for the whole day. He was caring for someone other than himself, someone who needed him, and depended on him to be there, expected him to keep her fed, and dry, and safe.

If only those tamagotchis could see him now.

One of Chartreuse’s hands grasped at the side of the bottle while the other flexed and gripped at a fold in David’s sweater, and David blinked down at those tiny hands. There was a sensation rising in his chest; a soft, heady sort of warmth that grew and spread with each happy noise the baby in his arms exhaled. It was an alarming, disturbing sort of feeling, not unlike the one David only ever experienced during the quiet, peaceful moments he spent with Patrick and, on the most fleeting of occasions, his family.

It felt a lot like the beginnings of heartburn, actually, and within the context of his current situation, David wasn’t at all convinced that was a good thing.

“I told you she liked you,” Twyla said, misinterpreting David’s wide-eyed, disbelieving expression. She patted him on the arm. “You’re good at this, David. Well done.” 

_Well done_. David blinked, cleared his throat, and fiercely bit down on a strong, inexplicable urge to smile. Clearly, this whole baby-feeding business was starting to go to his head. He let out an awkward cough before looking up, his expression sincere. “Thank you, Twyla.”

“You’re welcome, David.” Twyla spared him another smile, before stepping back and gesturing to the front of the store. “I really should get going, now that you have things handled.”

“Plans this afternoon?” David guessed, following her back into the main room.

Twyla shook her head. “My lunch break from the cafe ended like, fifteen minutes ago. There are probably _a lot_ of hungry customers over there waiting to yell at me.” She waved goodbye, her expression bright. “Don’t forget to burp her!”

David closed the door behind her and watched her cross the street, his fondness for the cafe waitress growing exponentially. “I always liked her,” he told Chartreuse, before he sucked in a sudden, horrified breath. “Did she just say I have to _burp_ you?”

\-----------------------------------

After a little trial and error, which included more frantic page-flipping through the baby binder, a misplaced burping towel and a healthy dose of swearing, Chartreuse was fed, burped, and back in her baby carrier, gurgling contently. She and her unconventional caregiver whiled away the remaining hours in each other’s company without any other major incidents. There wasn’t any more crying, or panicking, or poo-exploding diapers. It was just David, and a baby, and every so often, a customer or two.

“Thank you for your visit,” David said, holding out a tote bag to the lady in front of him, smiling beatifically at her. “Have a wonderful day.” His smiling facade fell away the moment the customer exited the store, and he shot a pointed look in Chartreuse’s direction. “Did you see that?” he asked her, eyebrows raised. “I told you the affinity for washed denim in this town is tragic. It’s like they’ve never even heard of the word ‘ecru’ before.”

Chartreuse burbled at him. “It’s not just a couple of them, either,” David continued. “I’ve done my best to steer them in the right direction, but I swear these people all think collectively. Like a hive-mind, or something.” 

More gurling. “You need to promise me you will stay away from all things acid wash,” David told her, voice suddenly stern. “Your complexion cannot pull that off. Best to learn these lessons early, trust me.” The bell above the door jangled. “We’ll continue this later,” David said, before greeting three incoming customers with a jaunty, “Welcome to Rose Apothecary. How may I be of service to you?”

“David Rose?” asked the woman in front; she was holding an overflowing, careworn briefcase and staring at David with a frazzled sort of look.

“Yes,” David said slowly, his eyes flickering uncertainly between the woman and the two men standing behind her, both of whom were wearing police uniforms. His face fell once realization dawned on him.

The woman held up a badge dangling from the lanyard around her neck, and David squinted at it. “I’m from the county, Mr. Rose,” she said, her voice clipped and no-nonsense. “We’re here for the abandoned child.”

“Oh,” David said, and one of his hands reached up to rub absently at his own neck as he glanced from the two police officers, to the baby carrier, and back to the woman again. “Yes. Of course.” He gestured to Chartreuse. “Here she is, uh…” He balked when the woman picked up the baby carrier and turned for the exit without another word. “That’s it?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re taking her, just like that? Before I can even…” Say goodbye, David almost said, but caught himself just in time. “Don’t you need a statement from me first?”

“These officers will take care of that,” the woman said, waving dismissively at the two men behind her. “It’s a long drive, we need to hit the road. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”

“It wasn’t... a _terrible_ inconvenience,” David mumbled, feeling discombobulated. “Here, let me...” He hurried around the counter and held the door for her. “Can I, um.” He twisted his hands together, unaccountably discomfited; he couldn’t quite understand it, but it was almost as though he was experiencing… regret? No, that wasn’t it. Despondency? Sorrow? Indigestion? Whatever it was, it was extremely vexing, and David didn’t appreciate the feeling at all. “Can I ask where you’re taking her? Somewhere local, maybe?” His voice lilted up hopefully at the end.

The woman stared dourly back at him. “We’re heading back to Thornbridge. She’ll be checked over by a doctor, and then we’ll try to find a home to place her in.”

“But… she will have a home, right?” 

“Everybody loves babies, Mr. Rose. I wouldn’t worry. Have a good evening.”

And just like that, Chartreuse exited his life as abruptly as she entered. David watched as the woman disappeared around the corner, the baby carrier bobbing and swaying against her knee. There was a scratchy, tight feeling forming in his throat. He must be coming down with something, David told himself, swallowing thickly.

One of the police officers tapped David on the shoulder, and they spent the next quarter-hour going over every moment David and Chartreuse spent together. From their rocky first meeting at the motel, through their rocky morning walk, into their -- alright yes, fine, _most_ of the day was rocky. David wasn’t exactly a paradigm of caregiving, that had been put into stark perspective for him today, but that didn’t mean he needed Officer Do-right and his partner Barney Fife to remind him of that fact with all their droll remarks and unappreciated guffawing.

Patrick returned to the store just as the two officers were leaving. Holding the door open for them, he nodded respectfully as they passed, before entering the store himself and smiling at David, one arm held behind his back. “Hi.”

“Hi,” David returned mulishly, a frown on his face. "How was your rehearsal?"

“I'm not confident I'll ever feel my feet again," Patrick told him cheerfully. His eyes skittered along the counter. "No baby?”

David crossed his arms and glowered down at the wooden top of the counter. “Whisked away by a woman in desperate need of some ‘me time.’”

Patrick wisely didn't comment about the steely bite to David's tone. “I see the store’s still standing,” he observed instead, his gaze darting around the room; he sounded impressed. Something caught his attention, and he quirked his head to the side. “Didn’t there used to be a vase over there?”

“Two, actually. Casualties of the day.” 

“Mm,” Patrick hummed. He peered closely at David, eyes roving over his hunched shoulders, taking in his overall gloomy disposition. “Everything okay?”

“Of course everything’s okay, why wouldn’t it be okay?” David said, desperately avoiding eye contact.

He was called on it almost immediately. “David, look at me.” With great reluctance, David did as he was asked; his heart gave an extra-strong _thud_ when he saw the soft expression his boyfriend was wearing. “It’s okay if you miss her.”

David forced out a laugh. “Miss her? Of course I don’t miss her, why would… why would you say that I miss her?” He sounded pitifully unconvincing, even to David. God, what was happening to him? He cleared his throat, and tried again. “I’m just grateful to have my life back. And my hands. She was so needy, Chartreuse. So,” he wrung his hands together, fidgeted with his neck, coughed again, "so _me_ , which frankly is too much for anybody to handle."

Patrick didn’t look convinced. “Well, alright,” he eventually conceded, with a casual shrug. “Then I guess you won’t be needing these.” He indicated the hand still hiding behind his back.

Despite himself, David perked up hopefully. “Are they edible?”

“In theory. I wouldn’t suggest it, though,” Patrick told him, his lips twitching. With a flourish, he revealed his surprise, presenting David with a bouquet of pale pink roses, the stems of which were held together with a satiny, yellow-green ribbon.

David gaped down at the flowers, his hand reaching out for them automatically; one of his fingers rubbed back and forth against the ribbon.

“The florist had to Google what color ‘chartreuse’ is,” Patrick told him, knowing instinctively where David’s attention was focused. “I’m really relieved that’s the color it turned out to be, by the way. What with, you know, the way you described it earlier, I wasn’t exactly confident it’d be… tasteful.”

Annoyingly, that thick feeling was making an encore appearance in David’s throat. He had to clear it twice to make his voice work properly. “There’s been an over-abundance of that color in my life today, but I appreciate the gesture.” He brought the roses up to his nose to sniff; if they also hid his soppy expression from Patrick, then all the better. “The flowers are wonderful, Patrick. Thank you.”

Patrick shrugged bashfully, looking pleased with himself. “I had a feeling you’d need a pick-me-up.”

David quirked an eyebrow. "Did you?"

"I'd like to think I know you pretty well, David," Patrick smiled at him, soft and private, "including how your heart works."

It took David longer than a second to recover from that one. "And why roses?" he asked, breathless as he waited on tenterhooks for another romantic proclamation.

Another shrug. “I asked for the flowers people usually give to new mothers.” He grinned at the affronted noise David made. Rounding the counter, Patrick pulled David in by the waist, wrapping him up in a warm hug. “You did a good thing today, David. I’m very proud of you.”

“Hmph.” Returning the hug, David ducked his head, burying his face in the dip where Patrick's shoulder met his neck. “I needed the pick-me-up,” he admitted into the skin there, just as one of his eyes started to leak.

A soothing hand rubbed up and down his back. “That’s a valid feeling, David.”

"And also the sandwich, so. Thank you for thinking of me."

"You're very welcome."

Rubbing his cheek against the fabric of Patrick's shirt, David sighed. “They didn’t even let me say goodbye.”

Patrick's lips pressed to the top of David's ear. “Those monsters.”

“She was a good baby. She helped me sell five lip balms and one of the cat scarves.”

“We’ll re-paint the walls chartreuse in her honor.”

“That will unbalance our entire aesthetic. We’ll have to moodboard the whole store again.”

“Dear god. Anything but the moodboards.”

David let out a watery laugh, and Patrick answered it with a kiss. They stood there in the quiet, wrapped up in each other, the trials and tribulations of the day falling from their shoulders as they hugged and kissed and breathed.

Eventually, Patrick broke the silence. “David?”

“Mm?”

“... you know you have spit up all down your back, right?”

David squeezed Patrick’s shoulders. “I’m trying very hard not to think about it,” he murmured, and that warm, full feeling from before -- the one that reminded him of sleepy blue eyes and impossibly small hands -- returned when he felt Patrick press a chuckle into David’s neck. Ah, David thought, finally understanding. So that’s what that feeling meant. “I love you a lot, Patrick Brewer.”

“I love you a lot back, David Rose.”

The sky outside Rose Apothecary was turning pink, not unlike the color of the flowers still dangling from David’s hand. The long, impossible day had finally come to an end, yet all David cared about in that moment was a strong pair of arms, a laugh pressed into his skin, and an over-abundance of yellow-green.

He’d always liked that color, chartreuse.

Squeezing the man in his arms just that little bit tighter, David closed his eyes, and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue left!
> 
> I had an absolute blast writing this, and I hope you've enjoyed reading.


	4. Epilogue: David Reunites with a Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue (and whole story, really) is dedicated to my dearest and best friend, Katy. I'm terribly sorry I strong-armed you into watching Schitt's Creek, just so I could have someone to gush about it with. (I'm absolutely not sorry.)
> 
> Thank you for naming Chartreuse. And talking me out of my spirals. And countless other things I can't list here.
> 
> To everyone else, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Exactly one week after That One Time Things Went Horribly Awry, the bell above the entrance to Rose Apothecary jangled, announcing the arrival of a very unexpected guest.

David, who was in the middle of putting a newly-framed, yellow-green ribbon onto the wall behind the counter, craned his neck around and blinked. “Jocelyn,” he said, surprise coloring his voice. Jocelyn Schitt waved at him in greeting, and David dropped from the stepladder he was standing on when he spotted her husband following her through the door, pushing an abnormally-long stroller in front of him. “And the two Rolands. _Fantastic_. Patrick?” David called over his shoulder, where Patrick was sequestered in the stock room, taking inventory. “I require your assistance!”

That was a bold-faced lie, and Patrick would be annoyed David pulled him away from his work, but in that moment David couldn’t bring himself to care. The news of David’s heroic deed had spread like wildfire throughout the tiny town, and for the past seven days he’d been forced to rehash the whole ordeal an exhaustive number of times. Remembering Chartreuse, and how he hadn’t even been allowed to say goodbye, still left David feeling drained, and frustrated, and dare he say it, _fragile_. It was an emotional rollercoaster, finding and caring for and losing a baby all in one day, and David refused to be ashamed about it.

That being said, if David was going to be dragged against his will into another interaction with Roland Schitt and his crass humor, then by God he was dragging his boyfriend down with him.

“Hello, David,” Jocelyn greeted, as Patrick emerged from behind the curtain, stopping next to David’s elbow. “And Patrick! It’s so good to see you both,” she gushed.

“Jocelyn, you look radiant today,” Patrick said, and after a discreet nudge to the ribs David seconded the compliment with a non-committal hum. 

“I bet you two’re wondering what we’re doing here,” Roland told them, waggling a finger in front of David’s nose, which David leant away from as far as his neck muscles would allow. “Go on and take a guess.”

David made a face. “Do we have to?”

Jocelyn gave a playful slap to her husband’s shoulder. “Don’t tease them, Roley,” she told him, her entire being practically vibrating with excitement. “These boys are busy with their store. Let’s just show them, Roland. Show them!”

David and Patrick glanced at each other, alarmed. “Uh, I really don’t think that’s necessary --” Patrick hastened to say, holding up his hands, while beside him David pressed a hand against his chest and gasped, “This is a _family-friendly_ store!” 

There was a startled pause, before Jocelyn and Roland both laughed. 

“You Roses, always cracking jokes,” Roland snorted, and David stood, frozen in horrified disbelief, as Roland reached up to ruffle his hair. “Always a riot with one of you people around!”

Ducking the hand that was grossly invading his personal space, David opened his mouth to tell Roland just what kind of riot he could be, but closed it with a click after Patrick stepped purposefully on his foot.

“We have someone we’d like you to meet,” Jocelyn told them as she signaled something to Roland, who reached into the stroller.

David eyed the stroller warily. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that. “I’ve already met your son,” he reminded them, his lip curling up at the memory of when Roland strongarmed him into babysitting. He motioned vaguely with one of his hands. “Bald head, round body, bit of an overbite if I recall -- ow!”

Patrick had stepped on his foot again. David mouthed a defensive _what?_ at him. 

“I would like to introduce,” Roland announced, pitching his voice up obnoxiously and adding his own drumroll as he straightened up from the stroller, a squirming bundle in his arms, “the newest addition to the Schitt family. The one, the only --”

“ _Chartreuse_?” David blurted, eyes going wide as they landed on the small, yet unmistakably familiar baby in Roland’s arms.

Roland snorted. “What a stupid name,” he said, chortling oafishly even as he dumped the baby girl into David’s stunned arms. “Say hello to Rainbow Schitt,” he crooned, frowning when Patrick abruptly turned away to contend with a sudden, violent burst of coughing. “You okay, bud?”

“He has hay fever,” David excused in an absent voice, at the same time Patrick failed to suppress what was very clearly a snicker. David’s eyes roved over Chartreuse’s face in stark amazement, taking in the subtle changes that had already occurred during their short time apart. Her cheeks were fuller, her hair a little darker, the denim-blue of her eyes just that much more aware…

A gentle hand pressed against David’s forearm. “We wanted you to be the first one, David,” Jocelyn said, and David did a double-take when he noticed the unshed tears misting her eyes. She smiled tremulously at him. “After all you did for her, you deserve to be the first person to officially meet our granddaughter.”

In that moment, a feather could’ve knocked David over. “Granddaughter?” he repeated, his voice faint. Whether with confusion or dismay, he honestly couldn’t tell. Did that mean Chartreuse was living here for good?

… Did that mean he’d spent an entire day _bonding with a Schitt_?

Oh, god. He needed to sit down.

“This is Mutt’s daughter,” Roland explained, his chest puffed out proudly as he wrapped an arm around Jocelyn’s waist. “Turns out pinecones weren’t the only thing our boy was picking while he was up in that commune, if you catch my drift,” he added as an aside to Patrick, who had to muffle a second round of coughing.

“He didn’t know about her until after she was born,” Jocelyn explained. “He tried to warn us in time, but his letter only arrived a few days ago. It’s hard sending mail from where he is, you know,” she added, with a what-can-you-do kind of shrug.

Patrick made a sympathetic noise. “Prison?” 

“No,” Jocelyn frowned at him, “the Peace Corps.”

“... Oh.” Patrick smiled awkwardly, and this time it was David’s turn to step on his foot. 

“Yeah, we’ve been in Thornbridge the last two days getting everything sorted out,” Roland told them, making that abominable cheek-sucking noise; David briefly closed his eyes, willing himself patience. “It took a while, what with Mutt being stuck on that whaling ship he and his hippie-dippie friends commandeered. That’s why the baby was left on your doorstep, Dave,” he said to David. “Mutt’s ex-paramour isn’t much of the mothering type. Mutt knew we’d look after little Rainbow for him until he got back, so he told her mother to bring her to Schitt’s Creek. She couldn’t remember where we lived, but as she walked past the motel she recognized my truck. Hippies,” he added with a snort. “All that peace-loving and tree-hugging rots their brains.”

“Hm, yes. That and all the drugs, probably,” David added, biting back a smirk when Patrick snorted.

“We wanted to thank you for taking care of her, David,” Jocelyn continued, her voice hitching with the force of her gratitude. “We’re so glad you opened your door for her. You kept her safe before we even knew she existed. Who knows what could’ve happened to her if you hadn’t been there?”

“Yeah, just imagine. It could’ve been Johnny who’d found her instead,” said Roland, with an exaggerated shudder. “Or worse, Moira!”

Jocelyn squeezed David’s arm. “Thank you, David. For everything.”

“I…” Inexplicably, David’s throat had grown suddenly tight. Ducking his head with a cough, he blinked his eyes rapidly, willing them to stay dry. “It was a colossal inconvenience,” he finally said, though he was embarrassed by how _not inconvenienced_ he sounded, “and I still maintain that children in general are awful and should not be allowed out in public until after they graduate. But,” he added after a pause, the word coming out low and soft, the next part almost physically painful for him to admit, “I’m glad I opened the door, too.” 

The baby stirred in his arms. A little fist poked out of the blankets, and when David nudged his pinky against it, the minuscule fingers grabbed on, and held tight.

Denim-blue blinked sleepily up at him, and five tiny fingers squeezed. A corner of David’s mouth tilted up, and stayed there.

Roland pressed in closer than David deemed strictly necessary, and cooed, “Welcome home, Rainbow David Schitt.”

David turned back to Jocelyn. “Are we married to that name, or…?”

\-----------------------------------

Later, as David stood in the store window, watching as Jocelyn, the two Rolands, and baby Rainbow crossed the street to the cafe, Patrick came up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“You’re smiling,” he noted, before pressing a kiss to the side of the mouth in question.

David bit down on both lips, but didn’t deny it.

Two fingertips brushed against the corner of his eye. “And also crying.”

With a sniffle, David slid an arm up Patrick’s back, hugging him close. “I’m just so upset that she’s a _Schitt_ ,” he sighed, wiping beneath the other eye with his thumb.

Patrick hummed, unconvinced. “That must be it.”

“Of course it is,” David scoffed at him, his voice almost as watery as his eyes. “Why else would I possibly be crying? It’s not like I… like I _missed_ her, or I’m glad she’s back, or I’m already plotting the best strategy to keep Jocelyn from dressing her like a two-bit pageant drop-out.” 

Patrick lifted an eyebrow at him. “Sounds to me like you plan on being a bit of a permanent fixture in Rainbow’s life.”

“Okay, first of all?” David said, holding up a warning finger at him. “We are never, and I cannot stress this enough, _ever_ calling her ‘Rainbow.’”

Patrick tilted his head at him. “Does the man who named a baby ‘Chartreuse’ get to ridicule the name ‘Rainbow’?”

“He does if he’s going to get her through middle school unscathed!” Patrick lifted both eyebrows this time, watching in amusement as David began to fidget, uncomfortable beneath such scrutiny. He hadn’t meant to sound quite so vehement. Or so invested, for that matter. “I can’t let her go through life unattended!” he finally said, when Patrick continued to stare at him, his silence knowing. David gestured out the window with his free hand. “With relatives like that? It’s practically child abuse. Her father’s name is _Mutt_ , for god’s sake.” Patrick was openly smiling at him now, his head cocked to the side, looking as though he was seeing a side of David he’d never noticed before. David made a face at him. “What?”

There was a long, thoughtful moment of silence, before Patrick responded. “Oh, nothing,” he said, and the light in his eyes was almost dazzling. He tilted their heads together, and squeezed him even closer. “So does this mean you like babies now?”

“Absolutely not.”

Patrick laughed. “There’s the man I fell in love with.” They shared a smile, then a soft kiss. Together they stood, looking out the window of their little store, feeling the most content it was possible for two people so happily in love to feel. 

It took Patrick less than three minutes to ruin the moment. “What if we called her ‘Rainy’?”

David glared at the side of his face. “You’re not funny.”

“... Bowie?”

“Stop talking now, please.”

A smile pressed into his shoulder. Outside of Rose Apothecary, the sun shone brightly in a crystal blue sky, and white fluffy clouds plodded along the horizon. A car drove down the road, and two buildings down a dog started barking. The dusty little town of Schitt’s Creek was thriving with life, and if David squinted, he could just make out Chartreuse, sitting with her family in one of the window booths of Cafe Tropical, waiting for lunch. 

David’s smile widened. Life, he was absolutely convinced, couldn’t get much better than this.

“Hey, David?” 

“Yes, Patrick?”

“What’s your opinion on picnics?”

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEN THEY GOT ENGAGED, THEN THEY GOT MARRIED, THEN THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. NO I'M NOT CRYING, THAT'S RIDICULOUS. WHY WOULD I BE CRYING?
> 
> (I haven't finished a story for a fandom in almost fifteen years. This is a big moment for me.)
> 
> Thank you for any and all comments or kudos! Hope you enjoyed :)


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